It Takes a Village

From South Essex Wildlife Hospital

When three organisations come together to save a life...

This barn owl has had a very busy few days... Originally found grounded by a member of the public, he was picked up and transferred Henlow Vets Royston for help. After taking an x-ray, their team found he had a nasty break to his wing

Fixing such a break requires a veterinary surgeon skilled on something called orthopaedic surgery (something that's not too common), but getting him from Hertfordshire to Essex wasn't an easy task... Incredibly, volunteers from UK Wildlife Transporters offered to make the 60 mile journey to bring him into our care and, before long, he was on our operating table in the hands of vet, Alda!

Once under our 'wing', Alda was able to carefully realign and secure the fracture using a series of specialised metal pins, leaving just an 'external fixator' visible on the wing (can you spot it in the first photo?). The poor boy is still not 100% out of the woods just yet, but the repair looks great and we're keeping everything crossed that, in three weeks time, that wing will be as good as new.

External fixators are great! You can read more about them when we've covered them before here.